Broadband technologies jumpstart rural economies

The first of six satellites designed by OneWeb as part of a 600-satellite constellation to provide worldwide internet on Wednesday from the European Space Port in Kourou, French Guiana, aboard an Arianespace Soyuz rocket.

Source: POLITICO Space

The OneWeb satellite constellation is a proposed satellite internet constellation of 900 satellites expected to provide global Internet broadband service to individual consumers as early as 2019.

The 900 communication satellites will operate in circular low Earth orbit, at approximately 750 miles (1,200 km) altitude, transmitting and receiving in the Ku band of the radio frequency spectrum. Most of the capacity of the initial 648 satellites have been sold, and OneWeb is considering nearly quadrupling the size of the satellite constellation by adding 1,972 additional satellites that it has priority rights to.

(Update 04-27-19) A Soyuz rocket provided by the European launch company Arianespace lofted six OneWeb satellites into low Earth orbit today after lifting off from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana at 4:37 p.m. EST (2137 GMT). Those six satellites are the first of hundreds that the Virginia-based communications company OneWeb plans to launch over the next two years.